Explaining Pau Torres: Aston Villa’s most DIVISIVE footballer?

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Many times when he was injured and mings was in, the distribution was sorely missed in my opinion. How many runs did maatsen make and mings checked?

My take is that Pau and Konsa don’t complement each other as a pairing. They are both excellent individually, but they both work better with an aggressive, leader next to them. It’s no coincidence that Konsa gets a pass for our shaky defending as he looks good next to Mings. I’m convinced that if we had a right footed Mings, then people would be praising how good Pau is and overlook his deficiencies

In regards to how Emery wants to set up it's probably worth bearing in mind that none of Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Mings or Digne (the main starters over the past 2 seasons) are Emery's buys. He's brought in Pau (who was thrown in earlier than planned due to Mings' ACL and Maatsen and we'll see how they establish themselves next season but it's possible that none of the back 5 are the profiles Emery likes to use and he's just been making the best of the hand he was dealt.

It's a trade off in the Ming's vs Pau debate,horses for courses & it's good to have different options with each players bringing different attributes to our team/squad,but I doubt either of them could play every game with Villa in Europe nowadays we have to navigate nearly 60 games throughout the season. The other option I think could work is a defense with 3 CB's with Pau being mobile between central defense & midfield to exploit his vast passing range that has been very useful on many occasions…UTV!!!

I'm not having that about selling Konsa,we need at least 4 options at CB to rotate with so many games starting in 4 competitions again this season. 😊

I really hope Torres comes good. He comes across as a very likeable guy with a certain talent. The problem is, someone like Tielemanns pings those defence splitting passes just like Torres BUT he contributes so much more throughout the game in his position. It seems with Torres we only have him for the occasional good pass, while he makes so many mistakes and costs us goals. We are not a club yet that can carry those sort of players.

The 5 key games comment at the end is powerful stuff – don't necessarily think Mings presence guarantees 2 finals and CL, but Mings only has to influence one of those fixtures positively and (Turning Man City into a draw for example) and our season outcomes suddenly look very different
Also youve discussed Pau Torres without a single mention of Pau Wow Torres?

it depends who we play r.e paus ability

defensively one of the worst cbs that i've ever seen and his passing doesn't come close to making up for that imo, we have players like kamara and tielemans that can both make those passes so i just don't think his passing ability is that important, it was far more important when luiz was playing over tielemans as luiz didnt progress the ball as well as tielemans. also mings can and does make good passes through teams and watkins does profit from his long balls, i don't think torres can do the things defensively and as a leader that mings can. i genuinely think he's incapable of it

The Pau disrespect is insane lol! Look at his CV compared to Mings. Tyrone almost cost us top 8 in the champions league last season for his weekly brain fart. Tyrone is a good back up option to Pau. That’s the correct hierarchy.

Certainly don’t hate Pau, but its obvious he isn’t as good a defender as Mings, nor is he capable of imposing his personality, his will upon a game, as Mings can. Mings is a real leader on the pitch. Torres is a shrinking violet. Had Emery picked Mings on the last game of the season, I believe we’d have CL football again.